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This paper gives an overview of ethnic riots and institutional settings in the UK in recent years and focuses on the 1995 and 2001 Bradford disturbances. While many have conceptualised these by opposing “structural” and “cultural” theories, present ethnographic data show that this opposition is often blurred. Bradford Pakistanis perceive a substantial difference between the 1995 events (described with words such self-defence, human rights and citizenship) and those of 2001 (described in political language but constructed around pseudo-initiatory rituals and proofs of masculinity). Rioters appear neither victims of the “system”, nor autonomous perpetrators of gratuitous violence and can be better understood through an analyse of local history and of the importance of agency within economic and cultural constraints.